A Gentleman of Fortune (13 page)

Tuesday – the day of the party to Brooke Manor – dawned fair and still, and so very hot that even Flora – who did not like the countryside – thought that a drive out of town might be refreshing. But the air was heavy and Dido was inclined to agree with the coachman when he threatened them with thunder before the day was over.

She was very glad though that the storm was not yet come for she would not have liked their visit to be put off. She had high hopes of it – and not just in the enjoyment of strawberries either. For here was surely an opportunity of solving some at least of the many mysteries which surrounded her. Today there were to be, gathered around Sir Joshua’s strawberry beds, all the people who interested her most. Mrs Midgely was to be there, with Miss Prentice and Miss Bevan. Mr Hewit, she had learnt from Flora, was invited, and Mr Lansdale was also expected, together with his friend Jem Morgan and Miss Neville.

‘I confess,’ she said to Flora, when they and their strawberry baskets were comfortably settled in the
barouche-landau
and they were rattling out of Richmond’s streets, ‘I am a little surprised that Mr Lansdale should consent to be of the party. To be in company with Mrs Midgely cannot be pleasant for him. He is very well aware of the unkind things she is saying about him.’

‘Yes,’ agreed Flora quietly. ‘And he certainly knows she is to be of the party today, because her ladyship sent me a note asking me most particularly to acquaint him of the fact. Sir Joshua would invite him you see – for men are the last creatures in the world to notice gossip – but poor Lady Carrisbrook was most anxious that there should be no unpleasant scenes.’

‘And you did as she requested and informed him?’

‘Oh yes! But he was not to be put off, you know. He said… He said that while there was such pleasant company to be met with…’ She blushed and lowered her eyes with a consciousness that was quite out of place in a married woman. ‘Since there were such dear friends to be there, he would not, he said, be put off by the likes of Mrs Midgely.’

‘Did he indeed!’ said Dido and, while Flora endeavoured to regain her composure, she turned away disapprovingly and gave herself up to thought – for she had a great deal to consider this morning. As the carriage continued through bright hayfields and shady coppiced woodland, she drew a slim volume from her basket, turned over its pages and wondered…

‘Is that your
Treatise upon Citizens?’
asked Flora when she had at last got the better of her blushes.

‘Yes, it came from Mr Lister this morning.’

‘Well then, I congratulate you upon its being so very short – for I think it will make remarkably dull reading.’

‘Fortunately,’ said Dido, ‘I do not think I shall need to read beyond this title page. All the information I need is here.’ And she held out the book to show Flora the name of its author – John Hewit Esquire.

‘Oh!’ cried Flora. ‘A revolutionary! Mr Hewit is a revolutionary!’

‘I think it would be more accurate to say that he was a revolutionary thirty years ago,’ corrected Dido. ‘From the things he said on Sunday I rather think that experience – and the late horrors enacted in France – have changed his views.’

‘Well,’ said Flora eagerly. ‘Now, of course, we know why Miss Prentice had to give him up when she was young!’

‘Yes,’ said Dido rather doubtingly. ‘Perhaps we do. But, unfortunately, we also know that Mr Hewit has a secret which he must hide. He is, I understand, shortly to take up a very good living in the north of England. I am quite certain that he does not wish anyone to know that he once held such very radical views.’

And she lapsed once more into very thoughtful silence.

Brooke Manor was a pleasant, respectable, old-fashioned country house, with the date of 1565 written up above its dark front door. Black beams and pale plasterwork comprised the greater part of its building and an arm of ancient forest curved around to embrace it at the back. In front, sunken lawns, moss-grown paths and old, old yew hedges led down to meadows and a stream shaded by willows.

The kitchen garden, very properly enclosed with warm, ivy-covered bricks, was, at present, so full of ripening strawberries that their scent reached Dido and Flora as they stepped down from the carriage.

Sir Joshua was on the front step to greet them as they arrived and very well did he suit his setting: a slight,
grey-haired
, healthy looking man of over fifty, dressed in the fashion of his youth. The young wife on his arm presented a very pretty contrast and, despite having been prepared by everything the Richmond gossips could say of the lady’s youth and beauty, Dido found that she must look and look again at Maria Carrisbrook.

It was impossible not to do so. To say that she was beautiful fell far short of the truth. There was beauty certainly in the delicate features, the soft eyes and the pleasing, upright figure, but there was something more. In the expression of the eyes, the turn of the graceful head, the way of moving and speaking, there was a something which, at first, Dido must call ‘charm’, although, having watched Lady Carrisbrook a little longer, she wondered whether a man might not call it ‘bewitchment’.

She certainly seemed to be a devoted wife, for, in between paying very proper attention to her guests, she worried that Sir Joshua’s eyes were not properly shaded from the sun, sent a servant to fetch a hat and finally, being dissatisfied with the one which was brought, ran off to find exactly the right piece of headgear herself.

Her husband complained about, and enjoyed, her attentions. ‘Now, now. Don’t fuss, my dear. Don’t fuss,’ he muttered happily as he led them to the kitchen garden – where a large company was already gathered.

A glance around the garden soon told her that Mr Lomax was absent; but all her other acquaintance were here. It was a strange scene: ladies and gentlemen stooping and bending in a domain which is usually left to gardeners. Elegant, well-modulated voices echoed about the old brick walls of the kitchen garden. Printed muslins brushed the earth between bright green and red rows of strawberry plants, and a pretty pink parasol had been set aside in a neighbouring bed of cabbages.

Everyone was intent upon strawberries – except perhaps Mr Hewit who was standing a little apart from the rest, wrapped in thought and only occasionally stooping down to dutifully pick at the fruit.

Dido and Flora set themselves to pick alongside Miss Bevan who had detached herself a little from her companions and who was looking decidedly ill and pale beneath her plain white bonnet. There was a little reddening of the eyes which could not but rouse a suspicion of tears against her.

She spoke very civilly to them, however, about the day and the garden and, after a while, seeing that Flora was very busy with her task, she said quietly to Dido, ‘And how do your enquiries go on, Miss Kent? I hope you will soon be able to prove Mr Lansdale quite innocent.’

Dido sighed, set down her basket and straightened her already-aching back. ‘They go on very badly indeed, I am afraid,’ she said.

‘I am sorry to hear it. I wish I could be of more use to you; but I regret that I know very little of the matter.’

‘Perhaps you
can
help me, Miss Bevan,’ she said looking very directly at her. ‘There is a line of Shakespeare’s – it has been brought to my attention in connection with this affair – I am not at liberty to say exactly how – but I believe it may be of some importance.’

‘How very intriguing!’ exclaimed Miss Bevan, returning her gaze with fearless interest.

‘You see, the difficulty is that, having no knowledge of its origin, there is no understanding its meaning.’

‘I shall do my best to help, Miss Kent. But I hope you are not meaning to judge me by my answer.’

‘Why should I mean to judge you?’ asked Dido keenly.

But Mary laughed. ‘I am only afraid,’ said she, ‘that I may reveal my ignorance and you will judge me unfit for my future task of educating children.’

‘Oh no! No, I promise I am not testing. But can you tell me whether the line: “The world is not their friend, nor the world’s laws,” does indeed come from Shakespeare?’

Miss Bevan crossed her arms as she thought. ‘I believe it does,’ she said at last, ‘though I am afraid I cannot think which play it occurs in. Why do you particularly wish to know?’

‘Because,’ said Dido, still watching her companion’s face for any change of complexion or sign of consciousness, ‘I would dearly love to know just who it is who must be considered unfriended by the laws of the world.’

Mary shook her head with a smile and bent once more over the strawberry bed. ‘I am sorry I cannot help you, Miss Kent. I have heard the line certainly, but you know I may not even have heard it in its original setting. For Shakespeare is so much a part of our heritage as Englishwomen that we hear and read his lines quoted everywhere. We meet them every day, do we not? All the great writers of our own time describe with his phrases and adopt his beauties. His lines are to be found in almost every book – every periodical that we open.’

Dido acknowledged it and they talked very pleasantly about the influence of the great poet upon the English language, until they were disturbed by Henry Lansdale’s approach. He came, as usual, to devote himself to Flora, positioning himself carefully between her and Miss Bevan so that Dido found herself attending rather more than she should to his talk.

He was so pleased that they were come…he had been wanting their company very much…such a scheme as this was nothing without pleasant companions… He had been so afraid that the best of the fruit would be gone before they came…had in fact taken the liberty of saving some of the choicest berries…

Dido looked up as he proffered the basket in his hand. Perhaps he caught her eye – and her disapproval – for instead of holding it out to Flora he turned at the last moment and gave first pick of the fruit in it to Miss Bevan. Dido frowned at the little tableau and turned back very thoughtfully to the business of filling her own basket. There was something dangerous in Mr Lansdale’s manner… Was he to be trusted entirely?

She was next roused from her thoughts by Miss Neville who drew along beside her and said plaintively, ‘This is rather a singular occupation is it not, Miss Kent?

She turned. Miss Neville was peering suspiciously under a strawberry leaf and looking hot, tired and unhappy. ‘In my opinion,’ she continued, ‘strawberries are all very well in a dish with a little sugar and cream – but I had never thought to have to gather them myself.’

‘I believe it is generally considered the best – the most natural – way of enjoying the fruit. I am sure Sir Joshua means to give us pleasure.’

‘Oh,’ said Miss Neville. ‘Oh well!’ It was plain that her life had had rather too much necessary toil in it for her to regard as pleasure any exertion which might be avoided.

‘You seem fatigued, Miss Neville,’ said Dido solicitously. ‘Why do you not sit down awhile in the shade?’

Miss Neville looked about her at the rest of the company who were happily picking and eating and praising. ‘I do not like to go away,’ she confessed in a whisper. ‘It would look so very singular.’

Dido could not allow such an opportunity to pass her by.

‘Then I shall accompany you,’ she said with decision, popping one last strawberry into her mouth and standing up. ‘Then it cannot look singular, you know.’

She led the way to a wooden seat in a rose arbour beyond the wall of the kitchen garden and Miss Neville sat down gratefully. ‘Thank you, Miss Kent, this is very kind of you,’ she said – which was the occasion of some guilt, for Dido’s motives in suggesting the removal had not been ones of unadulterated humanity.

She smiled and allowed her companion to enjoy for a while the rest and comparative coolness. The arbour was deep and old and irregular, and composed of extremely pale pink roses of the kind which droop and fall almost as soon as they are opened. Little drifts of petals lay about their feet on the old brick path. Here they were hidden from both the house and the strawberry beds; their companions were no more than a buzz of voices beyond the wall – and an occasional ripple of laughter from Flora marking some more than usually outrageous remark from Mr Lansdale. In the alcove they were comfortably sheltered from the glare of the sun, but heat breathed up from the bricks at their feet. Three or four ornamental pheasants loitered about on the path.

Dido watched them for several minutes, and listened to a bee fumbling noisily in the heart of a rose, before she turned determinedly to her silent companion. ‘Miss Neville,’ she said, ‘I am glad to have this opportunity of conversation with you. There is something which I wish most particularly to ask you about.’

‘Yes?’ The single word sounded wary. She looked worried.

It would be kindest to speak quickly and plainly. ‘There seems,’ said Dido, looking directly at her, ‘to be a little confusion about the night on which Mrs Lansdale died. You see, Miss Prentice is quite certain that she saw a visitor approaching the house – and yet you assure me that you saw no such visitor. It is very strange, is it not?’

Miss Neville twisted her hands together and said nothing.

‘In view of the events which followed – the lady’s death – and the burglary too – I wonder whether more enquiries ought not to be made into this business. At the very least the man Fraser should be questioned, for he could tell us whether or not there was a visitor came to the door that day…’

‘No! No, Miss Kent…I assure you…it will by no means be necessary… No such enquiries need be made. For I think I can explain to you everything that seems strange in the case.’

‘Oh?’

‘You see…’ Miss Neville’s hands writhed and twisted harder than ever. ‘You see when I told you…or rather, when Mr Lansdale told you that I was at home that evening…it was certainly not my intention to deceive you…or to deceive anyone.’

‘So it was not true? You were not at home all evening?’

She stared down at her clenched fingers. ‘No,’ she said very quietly. ‘The truth is, I left the house soon after Mr Lansdale.’